First of all my apologies that this post is a day late. My wife and I went to Köln(or Cologne as most of you probably call it) for the weekend. For me that means no laptop, internet and/or twitter. We had a great time, but I won't tell you all the details just visit it if you are near by. The Cathedral by itself is worth your time! This weeks top 5 is more or less a waste of time. It's only a top 5 because that's what the title of this article is. In my opinion "A “Multivendor Post” on using iSCSI with VMware vSphere" is far above and beyond anything else on the list this week, and probably this year. Although I linked Chad's version this is a collaborative article between VMware (Andy Banta), EMC (Chad Sakac), NetApp (Vaughn Stewart),
Dell/EqualLogic( Eric Schott) and HP/Lefthand Networks (Adam Carter). Thanks guys for this great piece of work…
- Chad Sakac – A “Multivendor Post” on using iSCSI with VMware vSphere
One of the most popular posts we’ve ever done was the original “A ‘Multivendor Post’ to help our mutual iSCSI customers using VMware” that focused on the operation of the software iSCSI initiator in ESX 3.5 with several iSCSI targets from multiple vendors. There’s been a lot of demand for a follow-up, so without further ado, here’s a multivendor collaborative effort on an update, which leverages extensively content from VMworld 2009 sessions TA2467 and TA3264. The post was authored by the following vendors and people: VMware (Andy Banta), EMC (Chad Sakac), NetApp (Vaughn Stewart), Dell/EqualLogic( Eric Schott), HP/Lefthand Networks (Adam Carter) - Eric Siebert- Master’s guide to VMware Fault Tolerance
FT works by creating a secondary VM on another ESX host that shares the
same virtual disk file as the primary VM, and then transferring the CPU
and virtual device inputs from the primary VM (record) to the secondary
VM (replay) via a FT logging network interface card (NIC) so it is in
sync with the primary VM and ready to take over in case of a failure.
While both the primary and secondary VMs receive the same inputs, only
the primary VM produces output such as disk writes and network
transmits. The secondary VM’s output is suppressed by the hypervisor
and is not on the network until it becomes a primary VM, so essentially
both VMs function as a single VM. - Duncan Epping – Using limits instead of downscaling…
I’ve seen this floating around the communities a couple of times and
someone also mentioned this during a VCDX Panel: setting limits on VMs
when you are not allowed to decrease the memory. For example you want
to P2V a server with 8GB of memory and an average utilization of 15%.
According to normal guidelines it would make sense to resize the VM to
2GB, however due to political reasons (I paid for 8GB and I demand…)
this is not an option. This is when people start looking into using
limits. However I don’t recommend this approach and there’s a good
reason for it. - Vittorio Viarengo – Virtualization Journey Stages
Confidence can be characterized as selective at this stage.
The team carefully selects the first applications to virtualize based
on a path of least resistance for their organization. “Do I have a good
relationship with that application owner?, “Do I have skills to
virtualize the application in question?”, “What are the risks
associated with virtualizing it?”, “What are the risks associated with
NOT virtualizing it?”, “Does the ISV support the application in a
virtual environment?”, “Is there a compelling reason to virtualize this
particular app (lack of HA, deploying a new version, non-satisfactory
uptime…)?”… - Steve Kaplan – The desktops may be virtual, but the ROI is real
While the white paper lacks supporting data, the numbers nonetheless
look reasonable. For comparison, I recently calculated annual savings
of $455 for an organization virtualizing 1,000 PCs and laptops as part
of a phase one View 3 deployment. The payback period of 11.7 months
against an investment of $500,000 is in the general vicinity of the IDC
averages. Applying the IDC white paper estimate of $130 in user
productivity savings further reduces the payback period to 9.3 months.
